Pontifical Council to World Hindus - Globalization Sucks!

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has issued a heads up to world Hindus for Diwali, the Hindu Autumn festival of lights.

In the message, released October 20 and entitled “Christians and Hindus: Together to Foster a Culture of ‘Inclusion,’” the Pontifical Council stated that “globalization has not achieved its primary objective of integrating local peoples into the global community. Rather, globalization has contributed significantly to many peoples losing their sociocultural, economic and political identities.”

Globalization, the message continued, has contributed to relativism, syncretism, “a privatization of religion,” and “religious fundamentalism and ethnic, tribal and sectarian violence in different parts of the world.”

“Nurturing a culture of inclusion thus becomes a common call and a shared responsibility, which must be urgently undertaken,” the Pontifical Council added. “It is a project involving those who care for the health and survival of the human family here on earth and which needs to be carried out amidst, and in spite of, the forces that perpetuate the culture of exclusion.”

One Less Organ Donor - Vatican Overrules Only Living Disciple

Bless his leathery old heart, Pope Benny is an advocate of organ donation.  Unfortunately, the Vatican isn't.   Some doctor in Germany has been using Joe Ratzinger's donor card from the 70's to recruit new donors.

The Pope's secretary put that all to rest in a letter in which he informed the doctor that the Pope's elevation to, well Pope, rendered the donor card invalid.   Apparently the Vatican has a lovely collection of retired Popes and really doesn't want to break up the set when Benny croaks.

And now, for your anti-papist amusement, here are some funny protest placards that appeared in Britain during the Pope's last visit there.

When Nothing Else Sticks, Sometimes You Have to Fall on Your Own Sword

You can't say they didn't try - try and try again. However it seems the Vatican has run out of would-be scapegoats to carry the blame for its global, clerical paedophilia scandal. So, when in Rome... be a good gladiator and fall on your own sword.


Joe Ratzinger, reprising his role as Pope Benny the XVIth, just couldn't stick this to the media or the pro-choice movement or the gay rights activists or the Semites or the anti-Semites either. So now that he's fresh out of alternatives, he's blaming the kid diddling on - wait for it - the Church. Well, not so much the Church, as the priests and bishops and cardinals. After all, you can't blame buildings, can you?


"The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church," the pontiff said. "The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice."


Well that's a lovely sentiment but the world waits to see how it plays out. And, in fairness to Joe, he has ditched a bunch of buggering bishops of late and even impounded the Legionairies of Christ order after revelations that its founder was a father in every sense of the word and perhaps had his way with a few seminarians to boot. Still, the one hot topic that, for Joe, is not on the table for discussion remains the Church's doctrine of celibacy.

Whitehall to the Pope: How to Score Points with Britons

Britain's Foreign Office has a problem on its hands. Somebody leaked an internal memo by junior staffers suggesting how the Pope could use his upcoming visit to the UK to improve his image.

The suggestions included:

- opening an abortion clinic
- blessing a gay marriage, or
- launching a range of branded condoms

The ministry condemned the memo as "ill-judged, naive and disrespectful" and has sent an apology to the Institute of Kid Diddling, er, the Vatican. The sassy culprit has been transferred "to other duties." Yeah, right.

Why the RC Church is Rotten to the Core

Here's a story that's oft repeated, a story that told once is once too much.

This concerns the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who resigned yesterday after admitting to having sexually abused a young boy. Now, just one day later, a retired priest in Brussels tells Associated Press, that he told his superiors about Vangheluwe almost two decades ago and nothing was done.

Retired priest Rik Deville told The Associated Press that he made the allegations to Archbishop Godfried Danneels between 15 and 17 years ago after learning of them from a confidant of the victim's family. Danneels said through a spokesman that he had no recollections of Deville's allegations at the time.

...Norbert Bethune, who was dismissed after a doctrinal conflict with superiors, told the AP that he had brought allegations by some 30 other victims of other clerical abuse to the attention of Danneels and "he was so angry was us, so negative that he did not want to hear anything."

...The Vatican is moving to get rid of bishops tainted by the scandal — either those directly responsible of abusing children or ones who had sought to shield abusive priests. A Vatican spokesman said Saturday that the Catholic Church is capable of healing the wounds inflicted on it by the scandal.

Isn't that sweet? The Catholic Church is the victim of this. The wounds were "inflicted on it" after all and maybe a little bit on those kids, maybe. They're clinging to this mentality of the church as victim. Put the blame on a few rotten apples. Leave church doctrine, especially that celibacy business, out of this.

In my opinion, it's the Vatican's tenacious grip on that fairy-tale celibacy doctrine that ensures this church will forever remain a magnet for paedophilia. That's the very core of this evil and it reaches into every corner of the Roman Catholic world.

Turning Now to The Latest News in Kid-Diddling

We have reports from Santiago, Chile that the priest some Chileans revere as a "living saint," Fernando Karadima, is facing criminal charges. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

...four men who were once devoted followers have filed a criminal complaint alleging that Father Karadima, now 80, sexually abused them in secret for years. One man said he had reported the abuse to Father Karadima's superiors in Santiago seven years ago, but no action was taken.

All four men filed complaints last year with the archdiocesan tribunal and, receiving no response, spoke publicly for the first time this week. But the allegations have been largely met not with anger at Father Karadima but with outrage at the accusers by many of his parishioners, a prominent conservative politician and church officials.

... as the news broke this week, a cardinal confirmed the church had been secretly investigating claims of sexual abuse against the priest.

And, in Belgium, the Bishop of Bruges has resigned after admitting that he abused a young boy several years ago.

''When I was still a simple priest and for a while when I began as a bishop, I sexually abused a young man in my close entourage,'' Roger Vangheluwe said in a letter read out to reporters by a church official yesterday.

When is this church going to face reality and accept that there's something seriously and systemically wrong in the way it operates - that is to say under the doctrine of celibacy? Enough is enough.

Joe, er Benny - It's Me, Mound. Let's Chat.

You've really pissed in the pickles this time Joe. You've lost control of the whole kid diddling scandal. The tide has turned to the point where it's a distinct possibility even your saintly ass might be hauled before a court of law.

You have only yourself and your underlings to blame by comparing your critics to anti-Semites or blaming the scandal on Zionists or dismissing it as "petty gossip" or trying to write it off as a gay problem. One by one your straw men collapsed before you had a chance to knock them down.

C'mon Joe. I know it. The whole world knows it. You know it too but you won't admit it. The problem, Joe, is your church's fanatical obsession with clerical celibacy. Celibacy is the Titanic of the Roman Catholic Church. You're sinking.

Celibacy attacks the church at every turn. Perverse as this might seem, it even attracts gay men to the priesthood. One gay priest explained it very clearly. The priesthood was the obvious "way out" for a closeted homosexual wishing to escape exposure or dodge a mother otherwise desperate for grandchildren. They don't go in yearning to get at the altar boy's ass, not at all. They believe that getting closer to their faith will actually help them overcome temptation. Later, for some, it turns out they guessed wrong.

Don't lay this all on the gay clergy either. There are plenty of hetero priests who also mistakenly believe they can suppress their sexuality. Priests do diddle girls too.

You see, Joe, gay or straight, men all have a physiology they can't park at the door upon getting ordained. If they're going to stay celibate, they're going to struggle with it - forever. Some win, some lose and, there's no getting around this, you're setting up some of them to lose and then shirking all responsibility for the devastation that creates. You and your cronies are spinning so hard your pointy heads are going to burst trying to pin this on anti-Semites or Zionists or gossipers or homosexuals or whatever you can come up with today and tomorrow and you're beginning to sound downright ridiculous for that.

Here's the deal, Joe. If you're going to insist on celibacy you're going to have to accept personal
(as in "you") responsibility for the consequences. Stand up, be a man. If you really believe this celibacy bullshit is divine, prove it by accepting responsibility.

Homosexuality, Not Forced Celibacy, Cause of Clerical Paedophelia

Gee the Vatican can't help but stir up the very waters it's trying so desperately to calm. First they compared criticism of RC kid-diddling to anti-semitism. Then it was dismissed as "petty gossip." Then some retired RC nutjob blamed the criticism on a Zionist plot.

Today the pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone risked jumped into the pool by claiming that paedophilia was linked to homosexuality and had nothing to do with the Vatican's doctrine of celibacy:

"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia," he told a news conference in Santiago.

It does appear, however, that pope Benny is feeling the heat. He's now issued directions to Bishops to report kid-diddling to the police. From The Guardian:

The short set of rules, published online in English, is an attempt to satisfy critics who have accused the Catholic church of covering up some of the dozens of abuse cases coming to light in the US and Europe. "Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed," it states.

Francis X Rocca, Vatican correspondent for Religion News Service, said: "This is a new and notable public emphasis on the need to follow local laws."

The Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano described the rules as part of a "transparency drive" adopted by the Vatican. The document, it added, was based on the Motu Proprio, the 2001 Vatican ruling which ordered bishops to forward abuse cases to Rome.

But one Vatican expert said the 2001 document gave no specific instructions on reporting to the police. "There is no similar sentence in the Motu Proprio," said John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. "The Vatican may say these guidelines make explicit what was always understood but the truth is that for years abuse was not reported to the police."

In Ireland, bishops reportedly understood the 2001 rules to mean they should not tell police about abuse.

House of Pederasty Dismisses Scandal as "Petty Gossip"

This from the Vatican, a.k.a. Kid-Diddler U. The Dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sedano, has dismissed the uproar over child abuse by Catholic priests and the cover-up (oh hell, call it what it is - aiding and abetting) of it by senior Catholic prelates right up to the Pope as - wait for it - "Petty gossip."

Pope Benny "The Rat" Ratzinger dodged the whole business, setting his sights instead on "humanity" at large as suffering a "profound crisis" and in need of "spiritual and moral conversion."

And the Pope's personal priest, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, backtracked on his claim that criticism of the Vatican was akin to anti-Semitism saying he was only referring to "the use of stereotype and the easy passage from individual to collective guilt." Sorry Father but the "collective guilt" thing comes from the decades-long cover up of systemic child abuse perpetuated by senior church officials throughout Europe and North America. That's collective guilt, jackass, and don't bitch just because the shoe fits.

My verdict? The blame rests entirely at the feet of the Vatican, the Holy See. This widespread and enduring outrage is grounded directly in the church's inane policy of clerical celibacy. Popes past and present set up their church as a magnet for the type of person who eventually finds the altar boy's ass irresistible and the senior clerics who turn a blind eye to it or actively cover it up. Worse yet, the celibacy doctrine is nothing more than a fanciful notion some pope past pulled out of his own ass.

I'm betting the Roman Catholic church will weather this scandal and I'm betting the Vatican knows that all too well. In the final analysis the only thing that truly stands between the church and reform are the bottoms that will be sitting in church pews this morning. If there's going to be reform it will come from the outrage and repudiation of ordinary Catholics. If they don't walk, all this is for their church and for their pope is a little stretch of rather bumpy road. The Catholic faithful will decide when their church's priests stop poking little boys up the ass.

Vatican Points Pedophile Finger

The Vatican admits it's had a few bumps and bruises from revelations of child molestation, and worse, by its priests but, hey, doesn't every church? In fact, the Vatican says that, when it comes to kid diddling, some other churches are just as bad, even worse:

In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males.

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

So, if the Vatican admits that Priestly Peds are less than 5% of its clergy and excludes from that calculation garden variety homosexual priests who just like to do adolescent males, defining them as "the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts," what's the bottom line when you lump in the teen diddlers with the really 'little kid' diddlers?

The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

Well, unfortunately that last statement invites us to do the math. If the Vatican admits that upwards of 5% of its clergy are peds but, of all its priests committing abuses, 80-90% aren't peds in Rome's eyes but just gay guys who fancy sex with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17 (that's not pedophilia?), then that works out to a whopping 50% overall. And the Vatican is pointing fingers? That's just plain creepy.

Pope's Holocaust Denier Says Remarks "Imprudent"

Bishop Richard Williamson, one of four previously excommunicated Catholic Bishops restored to the flock by Pope Benedict XVI, has apologized to the boss for all the fuss he's caused and said his remarks were "imprudent."

What Williamson hasn't done is to recant his views that the Holocaust is a wildly-exaggerated fair tale nor has he apologized to the people who really deserve it, the Jewish community worldwide.

So it sounds like Bishop Ricky is sticking to his guns on the Holocaust business. Now, Joe Ratzinger has to figure out what he's going to do about it.

Bad Times for Pope Benny

Vatican boss, Pope Benedict Ex Vee Eye, just keeps getting drawn deeper in controversy over his decision to restore to the RC fold four previously excommunicated Bishops, one of whom is - well, let's face it - a Holocaust denier.

The wave of outrage and condemnation has had the Vatican spin doctors in overdrive. But today, it all got so much worse. From the Associated Press:

A priest in an ultraconservative society recently rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI has defended a bishop in his group and joined him in expressing doubts about the Holocaust.

While making more cautious remarks than Bishop Richard Williamson, the Rev. Floriano Abrahamowicz echoed, in an interview published Thursday by an Italian daily, the prelate's doubts that Jews were gassed during World War II.

"I know gas chambers existed at least to disinfect, I can't say if anybody was killed in them or not," Abrahamowicz told "La Tribuna di Treviso," a newspaper in northern Italy.

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, Father Floriano managed to put the other boot in at the same time:

Abrahamowicz also referred to Jews as being "the people of God who then became the God-killing people" — a remark that contradicts the Vatican II teaching that Jews as a people cannot be held responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Pope Re-Instates Holocaust Denier

Joe "The German" Ratzinger, who also goes by the stage name of Pope Benedict Ex Vee Eye or Benedict XVI, has nixed the excommunications of four unruly Catholic Bishops, one of whom said just last week that he doesn't believe the Nazis sent Jews to gas chambers.

Bad Boy Brit Bishop Richard Williamson, was one of four "shake and bake" Bishops of the Society of St. Pius X. They were turfed by the Vatican when society founder Archbishop LeFebvre consecrated the quartet as Bishops in 1970 without papal sanction.

Jewish groups have condemned the re-hirings. Hmmm, wonder what that's all about?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7849226.stm